Severe depression has taken residence in me a number of times in my life … even after Jesus so mercifully and miraculously snatched me from habitual self-destruction. I had every reason to be ecstatic, or at least really happy. I knew it. I acknowledged it, but it didn’t keep the depression from coming.

Shortly after this divine rescue was the birth of our second baby. The pregnancy had been one miraculous event after another … God moving me out of a dump of a place to live to a little house on a farm meeting financial need after financial need plus bunches of other good stuff. The delivery was the most awesome celebration of life … I mean there was joy everywhere in that little country hospital.

Not long after, though, postpartum depression set in. I loved my baby. I loved my family. I was so thankful for everything God was doing, but it didn’t keep the suicidal thoughts from engulfing me from hair to toenails. It was an ocean and I was drowning.

I had found out during my short walk with the Lord that I had a right to joy. I had a right to peace of mind. I had a right to be healed and whole. I had a right to love and be loved. I had a right to win. I had a right to be FREE!

I’d found out that Jesus was now a born-again man in the Godhead; one who’d never sinned but became sin for me; one who’d taken my place of punishment in hell; one who’d taken ownership of my sin and satisfied the claims of justice against me; one then raised to this position and authority in heaven for me … so He could enforce all He’d secured for me. This Great Substitution … He did it all just for me … and anyone who believes and takes it.

The taking it was the challenge. It was a fight. It wasn’t easy. But there was in me Someone Greater than me, and once I started fighting my faith/believing fight to take it, He engaged with me.

Baby coddled like a sack of potatoes on one arm, the other arm lifted to heaven, I’d pace the floors saying over and over and over, hour after hour, again and again just the words, “praise the Lord”. I’d find a Psalm in my Bible where David was just making good words to the Lord and put them in my mouth, saying or singing them over and over. Same words over and over. Just getting my mouth to open and then push out words was the major portion of my battle.

I’d get just enough peace so I could go on with my day being a mom. Next day would start the battle all over again … the forcing my mouth to open to just say “praise” again. But as time passed, I began to have breakthroughs that would last more than a day, then a week, then into a month.

This experience set the stage for other wins over depression. Each time more solid and more long-lasting. Now I’m free.

I’m saying, “Thank You Jesus for being … for living, for dying, for winning over darkness so through You I can forever be free. Help me to love, to forgive, to help others as You’ve done for me … so Mercifully. All in Jesus name.”

There doesn’t need to be an identifiable reason for depression. Yes, there are conditions that exist where depression can try to make a home in me … changes in my body chemistry, loss of someone or something, no way out of a circumstance. Other times depression just comes.

What I found out was that in Christ I’d been given supernatural ways to overcome. It was a fight. It wasn’t easy, but the more consistent and engaged I became, the quicker and more powerfully I’d blast past the depression into peace … and joy. I gotta a whole lot of joy now … it’s a good thing!

1 TIMOTHY 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. NKJ

PSALMS 8:2 “Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, because of Your enemies, that You may silence the enemy and the avenger.” When Jesus quoted this verse (Matthew 21:16), He substituted the word praise for the word strength. So it’s … You have ordained praise because of Your enemies … to silence them. NKJ

I wanna be sown into the most welcome, well-turned and fertilized soil.

I wanna be undisturbed and tenderly watered till I’m all ready to germinate.

I wanna burst out of that soil fully empowered to grow un-threatened to full maturity.

I wanna put out the hottest, most potent, gorgeous display of flowers that ever was.

I wanna produce a seed-harvest of unheard of proportions.

I wanna have every seed of mine be a duplicate of me to the nth degree.

If I a seed be, that is my dream.

I’m saying, “Father God, if that’s my dream, how much more is it Your’s. Jesus, You were the Ultimate Seed sown into this earth. You were held awhile by man, then sown in death, germinated to life – born-again from hell, producing the most outrageous harvest of souls reborn from death to life than can be counted. How much more powerful now for me to be feasting on Your Words (Bible) on a daily basis … planting the Seed of the Word of God into a welcome, well-turned, fertilized heart … watering it tenderly with love and thanksgiving so that it germinates, takes root and grows up to full maturity producing the most phenomenal harvest ever feeding the whole world around me. Yes! I like that. I believe I’ll take it. I have it. I thank You, and I WILL to forgive and love as You’ve forgiven and love me … so Mercifully. All in Jesus name.”

MARK 4:13-14 And He said to them, Do you not discern and understand this parable? How then is it possible for you to discern and understand all the parables?The sower sows the Word. AMP

MARK 4:20 And those (the Word seed) sown on the good (well-adapted) soil are the ones who hear the Word and receive and accept and welcome it and bear fruit—some thirty times as much as was sown, some sixty times as much, and some a hundred times as much. AMP

Even though I may have luxuriated in a spa last night, the memory of it truly does not replicate the experience, and the memory definitely has no benefit to my body.

Because God said … “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” I have to bathe myself in His thoughts every day, or else my soul succumbs to the thoughts that drench the atmosphere around me.

Everything in this world speaks to my senses. Just like my soul can be moved into sadness, it can be moved back into happiness. Everything I can see, taste, smell, feel, hear … it’s all subject to change. It all can change so whimsically, I just can’t base my existence on these fluctuations.

I’m saying, “I’ve gotta have something rock solid by which I live my life. Lord, You don’t change. You’re the same yesterday, today and forever. I can depend on You … and only You. Everyone else around me could disappear or fail. Everything around me could change in a nano second, but You will stay the same. You are my only safe place that’s why I love to bathe in Your thoughts everyday … it keeps me up to speed with You … or at least puts me going in the same direction as You, and You take care of the rest :).

Thank You. Thank You. Thank You. I WILL to forgive and love as You’ve forgiven and love me … so Mercifully. All in Jesus name.”

ISAIAH 55:8-9 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,”“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,so my ways are higher than your waysand my thoughts higher than your thoughts. NLT

HEBREWS 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. NLT

I’m becoming habitually devoted and surrendered to drinking the wonderful intoxicating love of Jesus. The wilfulness to do so is increasing.

I note symptoms of withdrawal if I don’t at least imbibe at regular intervals during each day … anxiety, irritability, and other unlovely traits.

EPHESIANS 5:18-20 Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him. Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ. MSG

I’m saying, “Jesus … You make me happy! Your love is sweet. Your Spirit intoxicating. Your Word empowering. Your wisdom enlightening. Your strength exhilarating. Peace and an overwhelming sense of well-being are always in Your presence. Each taste only increases my desire for more. You are my safe haven. You make me complete. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You, and I WILL to forgive and love as You’ve forgiven and love me … so Mercifully. All in Your name.”

It seems like I mention QUIET a lot, but the Lord just reminded me of what I used to do when I had a baby one year, and another child, 4 1/2 years. I’d get up anywhere between 3 to 3:30 AM just so I could read my Bible and get QUIET … truly quiet with God before the day started. I desperately needed Him and His power. Life was a mess.

There was NO place of rest from anything in my life, not in marriage, children, finances. I was so hungry to know Him, walk right, pray right, do right … all to bring at least some measure of peace to my daily living.

I was so free inside when I bathed in His love, His presence. I just needed to get what was on the inside out into a working order in my life. This time with Him always dumped a good heaping wallop of peace … life being more like driving with an automatic transmission rather than a manual – constantly, strenuously shifting gears all day.

Even though I walk in such a wonderful place of peace all the time now, I still look for that quiet place. I must have it.

It’s not just reading my Bible. I can do that and have no internal quiet whatsoever. It takes a press … it takes work. And I still have to constantly discipline myself to this place … not let it get swept away by everyday stuff. It’s because it’s outta that place of internal deep QUIET that peace and wisdom flow so I always know what to do, what to say, where to go. It’s invaluable.

I’m saying, “I’m coming boldly to Your Precious Throne of Grace to get more mercy and grace to help me, to strengthen me to pursue this QUIET. I believe You have so much more You want me to know of You and Your plans so I can be a vibrant, more lovely love-filled child in this world for which You have so much compassion. I take this. I have it. I thank You, and I WILL to forgive and love even as You’ve forgiven and love me … so Mercifully. All in Jesus name.”

HEBREWS 4:11 Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which those in the wilderness fell]. AMP

Sometimes, when a dilemma or a set of choices emerge before me, and I ask God for wisdom … (according to Proverbs 4, it’s the first thing to ask for, and James 1 says God will pour it out if I ask without doubt) … I tend to get all serious and am driven by the thought that I need to get very contemplative and go into examination mode.

But I was reading in Proverbs 8 yesterday where Wisdom is speaking in first person talking about when she was there during the creation of our world …

Day after day I was there, with my joyful applause,always enjoying his company,Delighted with the world of things and creatures,happily celebrating the human family. PR 8:30-31 MSG

It struck me how into joy Wisdom is. Then Wisdom instructs …

“And so, my children, listen to me,for all who follow my ways are joyful.Listen to my instruction and be wise.Don’t ignore it.Joyful are those who listen to me,watching for me daily at my gates,waiting for me outside my home!For whoever finds me finds lifeand receives favor from the Lord.But those who miss me injure themselves.All who hate me love death.” PR 8:32-36 NLT

I’m saying, “So, I’ve been leaping and singin’ and making happy sounds all morning, and I’m gonna continue knowing I’ve laid my request out before You. You’ve got the care of it now. It’s not a burden to me anymore cause I’ve rolled it over on You. I’m just gonna get happy knowing in Your Light I will see light … in fact, it’s the only place I’ll see light, so I’m gonna follow Your instructions and allow the treasures of Joy and Wisdom and Light and Righteousness to rise up in me. I will know what to do, how to see, how to think and how to act concerning all of it! Thank You. Thank You. Thank You. And I WILL to forgive and love as You’ve forgiven and love me … so Mercifully. All in Jesus name.”

Nature, our bodies, our souls … all designed to go into “fix” mode if anything goes amiss. I think that awesomely reflects my Creator God’s Love nature. His real goal is to get it back to perfect, whole and operating at max.

He’s always working at fixing the broken in this world. We just need to be reminded of that … and often, and so does the world around us.

My words, my actions, my living needs to be in “fix” mode all the time, but also, like Jesus, only doing it the way the Father shows me to do it, and saying only what I hear the Father say.

Like in the working of a thing, I may be stronger in prayer over the matter; someone else – stronger in organizing; someone else – into the details of the thing; someone else – into carrying out the details; someone else – the marketing or promotion; someone else – the sales … I can participate in each, but need to excel in my particular part.

COLOSSIANS 2:19 He (Jesus) is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us. MSG

JOHN 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.“ NIV

I’m saying, “I’m only prepared and strong for any given thing in direct proportion to the degree I’m receiving nourishment and strength from You. I can receive just enough strength and nourishment from You to be ordinary, just get by, or I can super chow down and excel. I like excelling … running with the wind beneath my feet 🙂 LOL. So, I’m hanging around You, Your Word, Your Spirit, Your people … staying well-hooked to You, the Vine, me the branch, so as I walk through my daily life I’m uncluttered, having Your mind and strength so I’m a light and help to those around me … forgiving and loving as You’ve forgiven and love me … so Mercifully. All in Jesus name.”